With the recent announcement that PayPal will team up with Android Pay to bring its services to the mobile payments world, and a survey highlighting mobile payment capabilities as the most in-demand technology for retailers, the industry is clearly in the midst of a boom.

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Just about every payments company out there either already has, or is working on, a way for customers to use their smartphones to transact a payment at a payment terminal. This is supposed to be the next big revolution in the payments industry. But at restaurants, at least, the need for payment terminals could be greatly reduced or eliminated in just a few years as other mobile initiatives become popular.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced during the company's last earnings call that in-store transactions made with Starbucks's mobile wallet accounted for 11% of Starbucks's North American transaction volume in the third quarter of 2013.* Here are the key takeaways:

Some day, Canadians will have the option to wave their smartphones over a cash register and be on their merry way, instead of swiping and punching into a credit or debit card terminal or fumbling for wayward coins and cash.
When that happens, it won’t likely be the pioneers of Internet payments such as PayPal providing consumers with mobile payment options, analysts say, but rather a group of old-timers — the country’s biggest banks and telecom companies.

Another financial institution entered the lucrative mobile payment fray Wednesday as Canada’s largest bank teamed up with Interac to demonstrate touch-free debit transactions for smartphones.
With a fast-payment-for-fast-food flourish, Royal Bank of Canada showed off its new Interac application at a McDonald’s restaurant in Toronto using BlackBerry smartphones.